The Hill Blog: In a Way, Aren't We All Cherokee Indians? I Mean, in a Poetical Sense. I Mean, in a Mythical Way.

The first poetic vision of Europeans in the new world was that of James Fenimore Cooper, who conjured Natty Bumpo. He had an "Indian name"  he had several: Hawkeye, Deerslayer, Pathfinder  indicating that he had been "reborn" in the new world in the Indian spirit. It is the oldest and most important myth in the American canon of our folklore, from Lone Ranger, who died and became "born again" via agency of an Indian shaman, and Fox Mulder, who returned from the dead via Indian intercession in The X Files, born anew with the past burned away in death, to enter a new age under the flag of the White Buffalo.

So Warren's claim to be "part Indian" is correct in mythical terms. Every old-school white Oklahoman is in this regard even if this is nominally not true.

It's true in a mythical sense, even if it's "nominally" false.

Classic.

But it is not a lie to want to be Indian and to imagine your ancestors were.

It's not a lie for me to want to be George Clooney. But if I begin writing checks signed "George Clooney," I'm pretty sure we've exited the realm of the "mythic imagination."

Elizabeth Warren was noted as a "minority woman of color" at Harvard.

She displaced a minority woman of color -- one whose status as a minority woman of color was more than "mythic" or "poetical."

It is to be free of Europeanism....

I call this portrait "Free of Europeanism."

A squaw in the Native American Signature Collection, by Ann Taylor
(available at Nordstrom's, at $585 for the complete ensemble)

Emerson saw the laggard Europeanism within the Yankee mind as a curse of the unformed American, living half in shadow. It would bring temptation unnatural to us raised free in the forest; fascism, as in Italy, Spain and German, and the perennial virus of French nihilism.

This just in: Warrior-dominated tribal bands are free of the evils of power by militaristic rule.

Warren in that regard brings a fresh, classical Americanism from the heartland back to us in Boston where we still have tendencies.

I will gladly thank anyone who can explain to me what this drivelous hackery means.

"We still have tendencies." I'll bet you do, brother.

In the last paragraph he implied he'd been raised "free in the forest" but I let that slide.

The James brothers, both William and Henry, would appreciate it. Henry in particular, in The Bostonians, could only find one worthy character up here, the country cousin Basil Ransom, a lawyer visiting from Mississippi. We are lucky to have Warren among us. She adds stock and substance.

What the f*ck? What is he babbling about?

It's like he realized midway through he was just talking nonsense and just started writing random words.

[I] hope Elizabeth Warren doesn't back down on this, because wanting to be Indian, like Hawkeye, makes us in a deeper sense fully American.

Lying about your background for career gain makes us, in a deeper sense, fully American.

"True in a Mythical Sense"

That's what it was when I made representations about what would or would not be occurring in your mouth. In a real and meaningful way, I've made your mouth more fully American.